Saturday was Pig Processing Day at the Perizzolo compound. Chad got up at 6am and headed over to help out. They started off with 2 pigs: one 215 lbs, the other 385 lbs, and 125 kg in pork shoulders. Out of that they were able to make 29 sopresse, 950 sausages, 45 musetti, 55 salami, 12 capicolli and 1 pancetta! Talk about a heavy work load.

I got there just after lunch. They had finished making all the sopresse and salami, and were working on the musetti (or Cotechino).

Chad was in charge of stuffing the meat cannon with musetto goodness (if you like boiled pig parts).

Darios Dad & Godfather are in charge of tying up the musetti. That is a very senior position in the hierarchy of Pig Processing.

On the table next to the musetto station the men were grinding up some pork that had been seasoned in preparation for sausage stuffing.

I don’t know if these boys are really working very hard.

This is why you never throw anything out, because long after the kids are grown you can still use their baby bath tub to bathe pork products.

Vintage Love

Gina got the exciting task of soaking and reconstituting the dried intestines for the sausages!

Sausage Delight!

I’ve missed the last couple of Pig Processing Days, but I’m glad I made it out to this one. Next year I need to go even earlier so I can catch the butchering of it all. Darios Mom posted a picture of the pigs hanging in their garage waiting to be sliced an diced and it got me so excited! I definitely want to venture into butchering next, learning all the different cuts of meat and how to carve them.

Such a great tradition that is slowly being pass on through the generations!

I had a quiet weekend, this weekend. Chad was out most of the timing doing man things and I was home doing a whole lot of nothing.

I managed to finish the 2nd Harry Potter novel on Sunday while wrapped up in 300 blankets. I was freezing cold and no amount of soup could warm me up.

The novelty of our situation is starting to wear off. Obviously we are beyond thankful that my parents have opened up their house to us, but it is starting to hit me just how much I wish we had a space of our own. You can only keep yourself cooped up in your bedroom for so long. Especially when it isn’t exactly the warmest place in the house! When you sit in a big empty house, all you wish is that someone was home to make it not feel so lonely, and when you sit in a big full house, all you wish is that everyone would go out so you can have some alone time. Yes, I know, the grass is always greener.

I realized today that in just over a month we will have been living this whole “transition into the next phase of life” for a year. I did not expect that it would take us a year. Scratch that, I did not expect that it would take us more then a year, considering we haven’t even bought a house yet.

We’ve seen a total of 4 houses in the last month. All of them have been older, heritage-esque homes in New West. We found one that was as close to perfect as we have seen to date, but it wasn’t perfect (not that anything will be). I know that when a house is right, we will feel it, but questions and anxiety start to run through my head. How will I know it is right? Will we ever find something that is right? How will I know that this feeling is the right feeling? I guess you just have to have faith. I knew when I met Chad that it was right, and now I have to trust that when I meet our house, I will know that it is right.

I’ve been spending more and more time sitting in silence, waiting for a voice to tell me what to do. That’s all I really can do right now.

Part of me just questions what all this waiting is for, why do we have to wait so long? Well, we have to wait so long because what is meant to be ours isn’t ready to be ours yet, and once it is I will feel silly that I ever worried and stressed about all the waiting. Didn’t Tom Petty say that the waiting is the hardest part? He was right.

I feel a little forlorn about our situation even though I have nothing to be forlorn about.

I just want a house so damn bad.

Sunday we made crostoli. We are a little early this year but our gracious hosts will be in Italy when the time comes to make them so we jumped the gun and got it done early.

Every year it gets a little more fun and little more crazy. White wine drinking, sugar pouring, deep fried, lard melting good times.

This year we decided that my Mom and Darios Mom should start a show call the Comares Kitchen (The Godmothers Kitchen) because the two of them together with a little wine and an Italian Man Servant is friggin priceless. And these days, every Tom, Dick and Harry has their own cooking show so why not these two!?

Tomorrow we are back again at the Perizzolo Compound for Sausage & Salami making. The men will be up early and get to spend the whole day with their hands in pig guts. And of course, I will be there to document the whole thing.

Yummm…fresh Italian sausages. I can’t wait!

Just after Christmas Shazzi was sent a bunch of Lightsaber Chopsticks. With too many to keep for herself, she graciously handed them out to friends so that we could be as cool as her. So, this past Friday, with Lightsaber Chopsticks in hand, we all met up for some all you can eat Sushi!

I’ve never had all you can eat Sushi before, mostly because I get so full so quickly, but with the variety they had at Shabusen it made the eating and sharing worth it. Plus, you could order pieces instead of giant rolls, so it worked out quite nicely.

Chad and Dario do not eat sushi, even though Gina and I LOVE it. Someone should invent a restaurant that is Half Japanese and Half American. Burgers for the boys and sushi for the girls. Despite his disdain for seafood, Dario got on the All You Can Eat bandwagon and ordered some Korean BBQ and veggies.

Chad ordered a plate of spicy pork so that he could Korean BBQ it. He gets annoyed that people assume ‘Oh, you are a boy, you like to barbeque, so come for Japanese food with us and just eat the Korean stuff’. Yes, well, he doesn’t even really like Korean BBQ, so he was quite the trooper sucking it up and getting Asian with us.

All the food was quite tasty. I enjoyed the experience because people ordered things I had never tried before, but since we were all sharing everything I was able to try a few new dishes. Everything was quite good. I have been to a LOT of Japanese restaurants, all around the world actually (I had Sushi for Thanksgiving dinner in Genoa, Italy. I still need to blog about that) and so I have had some really simple experiences and some really fancy and expensive experiences. I guess because of that I have started to become a bit of a Sushi snob. Because I have been exposed to amazing sushi, which came with a price tag, the $2.50 California roll down at Fujiya just doesn’t cut it anymore. Shabusen was great for all you can eat sushi, and I would go back again for it. The variety of items they had made the price ($24) worth it.

The sticks, in all their glory! One of the men working there said he had seen people come in to use these chopsticks before!

We taught Dario how to use Chopsticks, though he looks more like a crane trying to pick up heavy loads, than a man trying to eat food.

It was a great Friday night! So glad Shazzi organized it. I was also very glad that the boys indulged us despite even though they aren’t fans of Asian food.

I have spent the past few nights reading for an hour or so in bed and then passing out at 10pm. It’s not that I have had stressful or busy days, it’s not like I have been getting up early, but the second I look up from my book and see that it is 10pm I realize how tired I am and I can’t keep my eyes open, so I roll over and I’m out like a light.

I usually don’t tend to read at home, mostly because I have 100 things to do or 100 things to clean, and at the end of the night, it is much easier to snuggle in bed and watch the Food Network and zone out, then to keep my brain active in reading. But, since I no longer have 100 things to do or 100 things to clean, I have found that I have a lot of free time. As well, since we don’t have a TV in our room, I have found myself being drawn to books as a way of passing the time.

I am currently reading Harry Potter. I am doing this because Chad started to read it and borrowed all the books from my cousin, so if there was ever an opportunity to read it, now would be the time.

I was given the very first Harry Potter book as a Birthday present from one of my friends in High School. I did not read, at the time, (for fun, not literally) and I was totally against the huge phenomenon that was Harry Potter, so I but the book on my shelf and never looked at it again. There was no real reason why I was against Harry Potter, I just hated that it was so popular so I wanted nothing to do with it. Typical teenager.

So now I am reading it. The first few chapters were hard to get through only because I wanted to jump in the book and murder Harry’s Aunt, Uncle, and Cousin. Fat sons of bitches. I hope he turns them all into toads. I guess the good thing about never paying attention to Harry Potter is that I have no idea what happens in any of these books, so even though the entire world knows what’s going to happen next, I don’t, and I’d like to keep it that way.

Another interesting note, I went with Elise and Cristina to this store out in the valley called Potters just before Christmas. They usually sell gardening stuff but in December they turn their store into a giant Christmas store. While there Cristina pointed out this adorable white owl sitting in a tree. She said it reminded her of Hedwig, so naturally I had to buy it, even though I hadn’t started reading any of the books yet. So yes, I bought Hedwig at Potters, and now she sits on the windowsill in our room waiting to take messages.

Adorable.